SUICIDE BOMBING AT U.S. EMBASSY IN TURKEY LEAVES 2 DEAD – The Associated Press reports: “A suspected suicide bomber detonated an explosive device at the entrance of the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital on Friday, killing himself and one other person, officials said. U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardione told reporters that a guard at the gate was killed in the 1:15 p.m. blast, and a Turkish citizen was wounded. The bomb appeared to have exploded inside the security checkpoint at the side entrance of the embassy, but did not do damage inside the embassy itself. Footage showed that the door had been blown off its hinges and debris littered the ground and across the road. An Associated Press journalist saw a body in the street in front of an embassy side entrance. …

Story Continued Below

--“The embassy building is heavily protected. It is near an area where several other embassies are located, including that of Germany and France. Police sealed off the area and journalists were being kept away. There was no claim of responsibility, but Kurdish rebels and Islamic militants are active in Turkey. Kurdish rebels, who are fighting for autonomy in the Kurdish-dominated southeast, have dramatically stepped up attacks in Turkey over the last year.” http://politi.co/WGEA9Q

-- The attack comes on the day John Kerry will formally resign from the Senate to become the new secretary of State, and just months after the deadly attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

HAGEL FACES GOP FIRING SQUAD – Manu Raju and Tim Mak reports for the hometown paper: “Chuck Hagel left the Senate four years ago, but it could have been a lifetime judging by the harsh reception from his Republican former colleagues on Thursday. President Barack Obama’s defense secretary nominee was the target of blistering attacks by Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee during a marathon 7½-hour confirmation hearing. One by one, Republicans accused him of shifting his answers for political expediency, actually harboring radical views and even of helping fuel anti-American propaganda around the world. And Hagel had a tough time answering the endless barrage of hostile questioning.

-- “The former Nebraska GOP senator meandered and offered halting responses as he tried to explain and parse his past comments over Israel, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraq and nuclear arms. He was repeatedly cut off by his Republican inquisitors as he struggled to allay their concerns. After it was all over, Hagel’s GOP critics were far from satisfied, with some vowing to derail the nomination as it heads to a committee vote as early as next Thursday and on to the Senate floor after that.

-- “Hagel’s failure to quell GOP criticism probably isn’t enough to sink his chances to head the Defense Department, given that Democrats still are mostly united behind his nomination. Democrats appear to have enough support to push the Republican through committee and to defeat a prospective GOP filibuster on the floor. But that didn’t mean that opposition among Republicans wasn’t growing after Hagel’s testimony. ‘There’s the right lane, there’s the middle lane, there’s the left lane, and then there’s the Hagel lane,’ Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said after Hagel explained his worldview to senators. ‘There aren’t many people in his lane.’ … And freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, the tea party firebrand who engaged Hagel in tough questioning, later wouldn’t rule out trying to place a hold on his nomination, which would require 60 votes to overcome on the Senate floor.” http://politi.co/WiqXOF

-- POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein writes in his analysis that Hagel’s performance was pretty mediocre but his GOP critics didn’t land any devastating blows either. http://politi.co/WivqBc

HAGEL MIXES IT UP WITH McCAIN – Hagel and his former Senate buddy and fellow Vietnam veteran John McCain clashed over whether the troop surge in Iraq was the right strategy. Hagel wouldn’t give McCain a direct answer. Watch here:http://bit.ly/11cMOew

SEN. MARCO RUBIO said his views are too far apart from Hagel’s and he cannot support his nomination: http://politi.co/Xs8jBF

MENENDEZ URGED U.S. TO SUPPORT EMBATTLED DONOR’S BUSINESS DEAL – Raymond Hernandez and Frances Robles write on A1 of the New York Times: “Dr. Salomon E. Melgen, a wealthy Florida eye surgeon, has always been happy to help out his friend, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey. He rushed to the senator’s side when Mr. Menendez’s mother died, flew him around on his private jet and delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars to benefit Mr. Menendez and the national Democratic Party. Mr. Menendez, a Democrat, has also been helpful to Dr. Melgen, according to records and interviews, in ways that could bring the doctor a highly lucrative windfall.

-- “Two years ago, Dr. Melgen … bought an ownership interest in a company that had a long-dormant contract with the Dominican Republic to provide port security. Mr. Menendez, who is chairman of the Senate subcommittee that holds sway over the Dominican Republic, subsequently urged officials in the State and Commerce Departments to intervene so the contract would be enforced, at an estimated value of $500 million. This week, a team of agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Dr. Melgen’s offices in West Palm Beach, removing 30 boxes of documents and other material, and the senator now finds himself defending his relationship with a major political benefactor just as he is on the verge of reaching the most prestigious post of his career — the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. …

-- Aides acknowledged on Wednesday that Mr. Menendez had spoken to State Department officials about the contract. And at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere last July, he questioned two administration officials — Francisco J. Sánchez, the undersecretary for international trade at the Commerce Department, and Matthew Rooney, the deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs for the State Department — about why the United States government had not been more aggressive on the issue. The senator said more security was needed given the drug trade on the island. …

-- “Mr. Menendez’s chief of staff, Daniel O’Brien, said there was nothing unusual about the advocacy, saying the senator had always fought for ‘U.S. companies that are not being treated fairly or have issues pending in foreign countries.’ But Ken Boehm, the chairman of the government watchdog group, called the actions troubling. ‘At a minimum, the public is entitled to know more about this relationship,’ Mr. Boehm said. ‘It’s a matter of transparency and accountability.’” http://nyti.ms/W6zrGH

SENATE ETHICS PANEL REVIEWING MENENDEZ ALLEGATIONS – Paul Kane writes in the Washington Post: “The Senate Ethics Committee is reviewing allegations that Sen. Robert Menendez accepted inappropriate gifts from a Florida doctor who has flown the New Jersey Democrat to his estate in the Dominican Republic, a senior member of the panel confirmed Thursday. Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the committee, said the panel saw reports of the Tuesday FBI raid on the West Palm Beach, Fla. offices of Salomon Melgen, a Menendez friend and political supporter who is also in an $11 million tax dispute with the Internal Revenue Service. … ‘The Senate Ethics Committee is aware of the article in the Miami Herald and other media outlets, and we are following established procedures,’ Isakson said Thursday. …

--The New York Daily News’ Dan Friedman writes that Menendez played a cat-and-mouse game with reporters all day: “Where’s the senator? A day after allegations swirled that he cavorted with underage hookers in the Dominican Republic, Sen. Robert Menendez played a cat-and-mouse game with reporters. The camera crews parked outside the New Jersey Democrat’s office Thursday never got a glimpse of him. The usually accessible senator managed to avoid reporters almost all day, even as he cast six Senate votes and attended a lunch with Vice President Biden and other Democrats to talk about gun control. The Daily News finally caught up with Menendez as he ducked into an out-of-the-way Capitol elevator with visitors from New Jersey. But he was tight-lipped. ‘I have no comment,’ he said. ‘I am with people.’ He denied avoiding the media. ‘I am with constituents,’ he said, as the group gave him a buffer in the small elevator. …

-- Menendez went to great lengths. “At one point, instead of walking through a second-floor corridor to reach the Senate floor, he took a concealed elevator to the first floor, walked along a little-used corridor, and then took an out-of-the-way elevator back to the second floor. From there, he apparently entered the Senate chamber through the only entrance where the media cannot gather outside.” http://nydn.us/Xs2Hr1

-- WaPo’s Chris Cillizza awards Menendez the “Worst Week in Washington” prize: “Anytime a U.S. senator is forced to go on the record to deny liaisons with Dominican prostitutes, it’s probably not a good week for him,” he writes: http://wapo.st/WXPRRl

GOOD FRIDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 1, 2013, and welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of the day’s congressional news. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to swong@politico.com. If you don't already, please follow me on Twitter @scottwongDC.

My new followers include but are not limited to ‏@JayWBZ and @rosadelauro.

TODAY IN CONGRESS – Both the House and Senate are out. The Senate is back at 2 p.m. Monday and holds a key procedural vote to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act at 5:30 p.m.

MD. CHIMPS TO PREDICT SUPER BOWL WINNER – “The chimpanzees at The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore are going to be predicting the winner of Sunday's Super Bowl,” WTOP reports. “The zoo says that on Friday keepers will put up banners for the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers in the chimps' enclosure. The zoo says its 11 chimpanzees will then be allowed in and be allowed to rip down the banners. The zoo says whichever banner the chimps tear down first will be the team they've predicted to win.” http://bit.ly/YIC06h

The Detroit Free Press rounds up predictions from some national experts:

5) MIKE FLORIO, PROFOOTBALLTALK.COM: "The first-born son becomes the first to hoist the trophy. ... Ravens, 30-27."

SEND US YOUR SUPER BOWL PREDICTION: The person who comes closest to picking the winner and correct score will get a mention in Monday’s Huddle!

CRUZ: HAGEL’S CONFIRMATION DAY CONVERSION – Freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who questioned Hagel at Thursday’s hearing, pens this POLITICO op-ed: “[T]he man who testified before Congress Thursday to become our nation’s next secretary of Defense sounded very different from the one who, for the past two decades, has advocated that the U.S. adopt a weakened posture on the world stage. As a two-term senator and active participant in foreign policy discussions, Hagel repeatedly declined to support measures to crack down on state sponsors of terrorism, belittled the notion of using any means to prevent a nuclear Iran, advised U.S. leaders to engage in direct negotiations with rogue nations and hostile terrorist groups, and expressed remarkable antagonism towards the longstanding U.S. alliance with Israel. Since Hagel has been nominated to become Defense secretary, however, he’s disavowed each one of these positions. It all amounts to quite the confirmation day conversion. …

-- “It all begs the question, how could someone who has been so engaged in major foreign policy debates so radically reverse his views on so many important matters? Or, today, is he just telling senators what they want to hear? In my view, peace through strength has always been the wisest course for our nation. And the principal job of the Defense secretary is to help provide a credible threat to deter those who would seek to harm U.S. national security.

-- “Hagel’s nomination has been publicly celebrated by the Iranian government — surely an occurrence without precedent for a nominee for secretary of Defense. And Iran’s belief that Hagel will not stand against their acquiring nuclear weapons capacity makes it more likely they will charge ahead, which makes it more likely the United States will be drawn into military combat. I hope that senators in both parties will examine his record closely; as for me, this is a nomination I cannot support.” http://politi.co/Vz6tTk

SENATE PASSES DEBT CEILING BILL 64-34, OBAMA TO SIGN – Seung Min Kim reports for POLITICO: “With little fanfare Thursday, the Senate agreed to suspend the nation’s $16.4 trillion debt ceiling until May 19, postponing the specter of default that threatened the nation as early as February. The vote was 64-34. It now heads to the White House for President Barack Obama’s expected signature. It would also tie lawmakers’ salaries to whether their respective chambers pass a budget. If the House or the Senate do not pass a budget by April 15, the pay for members in that chamber will be held in an escrow account until they pass a budget or until the last day of the 113th Congress.” http://politi.co/XMmEah

Boston Globe, A1 with centerpiece photo, “Before global endeavor, Kerry retraces, reflects on his roots,” By Matt Viser: “He has already become known as “Mr. Secretary,’’ with a diplomatic security team and a motorcade that shuts down highways. But John Forbes Kerry was officially still a United States senator Thursday, on a nostalgia tour through the state he represented in Washington for the better part of three decades. Here was his old desk at the Middlesex District Attorney’s office. Here were his old friends in Springfield. Here was a gathering of 200 Democratic luminaries and supporters at Faneuil Hall. And here he was in his Boston Senate office, reclining in an armchair for one last interview with the Globe as a senator, reflecting on his political journey, his determined comeback from the depths of his 2004 presidential defeat, and what he considers the sorry state of modern American politics.

-- “A lawmaker who was never particularly known for his skills as a retail politician was suddenly waxing about all the average Joes he has met across Massachusetts. The newly confirmed secretary of state, whose sights were frequently focused overseas during his Senate career, talked fondly of walking the streets of Worcester. ‘Over the years I learned this really is just all about people,’ said Kerry, who is scheduled to be sworn in as the nation’s top diplomat on Friday. ‘You sort of gain an appreciation for the fight, if you will. Maybe it’s partly growing older. You reach a stage in your life where there’s a little less runway in front of you than there is in back of you. As a pilot, that’s not a good thing.’” http://bo.st/U7tlsH

BIPARTISAN PAIR: CORKER MENTORS WARREN – POLITICO’s MJ Lee reports: “Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has found a Republican friend in the Senate: Bob Corker. Warren, the national liberal icon and fierce Wall Street critic who unseated former GOP Sen. Scott Brown, reached out to Corker after her election victory to ask the Tennessee lawmaker to serve as her GOP mentor as she begins her Senate career. Corker agreed and the two lawmakers sat down together in December for 30 to 45 minutes in the GOP senator’s office when Warren was in town for freshman orientation. The pairing is part of an informal effort started a few years ago to promote a more collegial atmosphere in the Senate, with veterans of the chamber helping freshmen adjust to their new jobs. But it could prove to be a provocative policy pairing of high-profile Banking Committee members if the Senate takes on issues such as housing reform and possible changes to the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial oversight law, which created the consumer watchdog agency Warren championed.” http://politi.co/WhNco4

BIDEN PUSHES GUN CONTROL WITH SENATE DEMS – Meredith Shiner reports for Roll Call: “Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. paid a House call to Senate Democrats’ weekly policy lunch Thursday, pushing the president’s gun control agenda and calling the implementation of stricter gun laws a political ‘no brainer.’ Words come easier to Biden in a mob of reporters, however, than they do to Senate Democratic leaders when they craft legislative text. Democrats have taken their first steps toward legislation by holding Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, but the timeline for an actual bill, whatever that might look like, is unclear. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he would like any gun violence bill to move through the committee in regular order, something that would happen perhaps at the same time the panel considers a massive immigration overhaul.” http://bit.ly/VzIDn5

RUBIOWORLD FURIOUS ABOUT VITTER JAB – Jonathan Martin writes: “Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) associates, furious about fellow Republican Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) calling the Floridian ‘nuts’ and ‘naïve’ over his immigration reform efforts, are hitting Vitter where it hurts. ‘David Vitter has done some nuttier things in his life,’ a source close to Rubio wrote in an unsolicited email to POLITICO. That’s a not-at-all subtle reference to Vitter’s 2007 admission that his phone number appeared on a client list of a Washington, D.C. madam. A New Orleans-based prostitute and madam have also, separately, accused Vitter of being a client, but he has denied those charges. Asked for comment about the jab, Vitter’s press secretary didn’t respond to two emails. A receptionist at Vitter’s Washington office said the press staffer ‘must be away from his desk.’ Vitter’s attack on Rubio, on conservative Laura Ingraham’s talk show Wednesday, came as he steps up his public profile in advance of a potential 2015 gubernatorial bid. Vitter is moving to re-establish his conservative and populist bona fides.” http://politi.co/12cRFM2

GERALDO FOR SENATE? – Elizabeth Llorente and Andrew O'Reilly reports for Fox News: “Geraldo Rivera, the host of a Fox News show, said Thursday that he is ‘seriously contemplating running’ for the U.S. Senate in his home state of New Jersey. Rivera would be running for the seat that Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who is 89 and a Democrat, now occupies. Lautenberg is up for reelection in 2014 and has not confirmed whether he will run again. Rivera said he would run as a Republican. Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a Democrat, has made it known that he is considering running for the seat. ‘I mention this only briefly, fasten your seatbelt,’ Rivera said on his radio show. ‘I mentioned this only briefly to my wife ... but I am and I’ve been in touch with some people in the Republican Party in New Jersey. I am truly contemplating running for Senate against Frank Lautenberg or Cory Booker.’” http://bit.ly/Yoa8R6

THURSDAY’S TRIVIA WINNER – Ben Goodman in Rep. Mike Michaud’s office was first to correctly answer that Michael Dukakis and John Kerry, who served together as governor and lieutenant governor, both went on to win the presidential nomination for their party. Of course, neither ended up in the White House.

TODAY’S TRIVIA – Zach Aronow has today’s question: Who was the last secretary of State to serve two complete four year terms?

Bonus question: Who was the last secretary of State to serve for more than a single four year term? First to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day’s Huddle. Email me at swong@politico.com.

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** A message from the Stop The HIT Coalition: The Health Insurance Tax (HIT) drives up health care costs for small businesses, seniors, state Medicaid programs and middle-income Americans. The HIT is estimated to cost hardworking American families an additional $5,000 over a decade. And since the cost and consequences of the HIT increase over time, America’s small businesses and hardworking families are facing a bigger HIT every year. This translates to real jobs for businesses and real wages for families. That’s why the Stop The HIT Coalition – representing the nation’s small business owners and their employees – is working hard to repeal the HIT before it causes even more damage. Congress, please stop the HIT. Once and for all. http://bit.ly/1iE6tfW **

Authors:

About The Author

Scott Wong covers transportation for POLITICO Pro, and authors The Huddle, POLITICO’s popular morning tipsheet on Congress. He was a congressional reporter with the publication from 2010 to 2012.

He reported from Tucson, Ariz., after the deadly shooting rampage that severely injured Rep. Gabby Giffords and helped break a story about Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill’s private plane that led to her admission she owed more than $300,000 in state property taxes.

He got his professional start in journalism covering local government for two small newspapers in his native San Francisco Bay Area. He later became a staff writer for The Arizona Republic, where he covered the Arizona statehouse and Phoenix City Hall.

After graduating from UCLA, he spent a year teaching English in a rural mountain village in Japan. He is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association, and lives with his wife and daughter in Washington.